Reject Me Once, Regret Me Forever

**POV: Aria Silverfang** Kael Thornheart never came to our wedding. By the time he remembered I existed, I was already freezing to death in the dungeon beneath his house. Three years. Three years in the dark below his hall. A servant shoved scraps and stale water through the door each day—just enough to keep me breathing—and beyond that, no one ever came down to see if I still was. I am Aria Silverfang, second daughter of a border pack. Three years ago I took my sister's place and was sent to marry their Alpha—Kael. He didn't show. Not to the wedding. Not once in three years. I remember the day I arrived. The carriage climbed to Thornheart keep through sleet. The door opened. No one there for a bride—only a Beta with polished boots and a face that had already decided what I was. Kael sent his word through that Beta. Before his whole pack, gathered to witness the alliance, he named me what I was to him: a political hostage. Silverfang had shipped me over to buy his father's protection. Not a bride. Never his Luna. Someone in the hall drew a sharp breath. No one spoke for me. Then he had me locked below. Where no one would see me. And went back to his warm hall without once laying eyes on the girl he'd just condemned. I learned later he spent that night at the alliance feast, toasting the union he'd just buried. That was Kael's arrogance. To sentence a woman he had never looked at, on the word of others, and never wonder if she was still breathing. Upstairs there was always sound. His voice, laughing with the men who mattered. Cups knocked together. A pack alive and unaware that their Alpha's unwanted bride was freezing in the dark beneath their feet. My sister saw to the rest. Seraphine—that selfish woman. She wept on my shoulder—*Please, Aria, I cannot marry a stranger, I will die without him*—then walked free in my shadow. To marry the man she wanted, she shoved her own sister into the fire without blinking. She married her Lucian within the year. Sent me letters. Bragged of her happiness from the other side of the door I'd been locked behind. My father sold me like a calf at market and counted the alliance like coin. Never asked if I wanted it. Three years. Not one of them came down to check if I was still breathing. I had been brought here to be his Luna. He named me a hostage instead. Locked that hostage in the dark. Forgot she existed. That last winter was a cruel one, and even the scraps stopped coming. My wolf curled into herself, smaller and smaller, until there was nothing left to curl. No footsteps came. No one came. I opened my mouth—no one left to hear. The cold climbed my throat, filled my lungs. She gave one last shudder and was still. I died alone. And the last thought I had, before the dark took me, was not of my sister, or my father, or even the cold. It was of him. The Alpha who had never looked at me, and never would. And I promised the dark—quietly, the way you promise something you mean—that if I ever got the chance, I'd make him pay. I'd make him know what it was to be thrown away, unwanted, and never once looked at. --- I woke up gasping. I had died. I remembered that cold—alone, not a single soul coming for me, frozen through. Yet here I was, breathing. The Moon Goddess had sent me back. I lifted my hands before my face. Young hands—smooth, not a single scar, no cracks from the cold. No mark on my skin, and no mate-bond. Eighteen. I was back in my old room, alive. *Not again,* my wolf whispered. She remembered the cold. So did I. This time, I remembered everything. Every day of the cold. Every laugh from the hall above. Every one of them who shoved me into the dark, turned away, and forgot I existed. I hadn't forgotten a single face. Three years of freezing to death bought me one thing—I was back. And they had no idea. The door would open soon. My sister would come in with tea and tears and the same pretty lie she'd told me before. Last time, that door opening had made me shake. This time, I couldn't wait for it to open—couldn't wait to watch them play their parts, couldn't wait to make every one of them pay. I was already listening for her hand on the handle.